AND SO I RECIEVED THIS TONIGHT ...

BREAKING NEWS: U.S. death toll in Iraq reaches 4,000 after four soldiers killed in Baghdad...

There is so great a sadness in this ... and yet this simple one sentence "news alert" does not begin to tell the story of the hundred of thousands of Iraqi citizens that are dead or to recount the lives of American soldiers (or their families) who are physically and mentally wounded.

Why? Would someone please tell me why? Just one damn person tell me why?

CALIFORNIA STATE ASSEMBLY MEMBER ANTHONY PORTANTINO?

There is an old truism that says in effect: "Don't mess with the people I love." "Mess" with me but not with my kids, my parents, my friends...

So I will disclose that while he may be as obscure as Sally Kerns, one reasons California State Assembly Member Anthony Portantino
is this month's recipient of the "Into the Dust Bin of History" award is because he messed with "one of mine."

Winning an election in the Democratic primary in my district means you will win the general election. And Mr. Portantino did just that by employing what some have described as a "scorched earth" policy and utilizing among other things malicious "Push Polling" techniques. His victory gave me real meaning to the concept of "political fratricide."

Instead of running on a record, highlighting his work experience or demonstrating his knowledge of the communities he was to represent, Mr. Portantino ran on twenty years of being an effective house husband, a successful glad-hander and a meeting attender. To top it off he was then ordained by a small, local political clique that believes in the "right of secession."

This week, however, news sources throughout the entire state have reported that he had been demoted; relieved of his committee chairmanships and "punish" for his "impudence" by the current Speaker of the Assembly, Fabian Núñez (D-Los Angeles). Apparently Mr. Portintino forgot that the leader of the lower house can boost or bust careers.

But why would a first-term assembly member challenged Speaker Núñez's decision regarding his successor and insult his opinions? And do that despite that fact that the Speaker supported him in the primary? The capital buzz is that he has money but despite his apparent fund raising abilities Mr. Portantino was notified of his demotions in the lest noble of ways by FAX!

Politics is not a game, nor is it for the faint of heart, but it should be a place of honor especially among friends. Where there is no honor, there is not integrity.

California State Assembly Member, Anthony Portantino: recipient of this month's "Into the Dust Bin of History" award for lack of integrity.

IN ORDER TO FORM A PERFECT UNION

The full written context of the speech can be found here.

"HOUSELESS" IN 2008

This town of mine has always cared about the homeless. I feel I can say that with confidence after 35 years of working with volunteers, donors, and our faith communities who help the homeless daily.

I’ve talked about the city’s homeless with congressmen, City managers, police chiefs, mayors and at rotary, Church groups, at the country Club, the Town and Country. I’ve gone anywhere people would listen. And my listeners all care a lot about a problem that is now more than 40 years old and not much has changed.

Despite all of our conversations, one remark by one resident John Rasmussen sticks in my mind. Short, red-headed and always carrying a walking stick, John, who slept next to the heating vents at the main library in the winter said to me, “Frank, I’m not homeless, I’m houseless.” Continued here.

JUST THE MUSIC #2

Green Waves, music from Secret Garden.
Vocal: Karen Matheson

DEMOCRATIC SUPER DELEGATES

"Mr. Obama has won more states, a greater share of the popular vote and more pledged delegates than Mrs. Clinton." Sunday 16 March 2008, The New York Times.

If that is the case, and if continues to be the case, than the Democratic nominee should be Mr. Obama

Or the entire convention should default to Mr. Gore ... and let the two of them sit back and "get over. " I would not withdraw my endorsement of Mr. Obama at this point but, dammit you two, get over it .

Sally Kerns "INTO THE DUST BIN OF HISTORY AWARD" - goes to Sally Kerns

So... what does Oklahoma House Representative, Sally Kern (right) have to say about the world around us? "The homosexual agenda is destroying this nation," she says. Gays are "the death knell of this country ." They are as "bad" as Islam and worse than international terrorism!

What asked about her comments, Ms. Kern is reported to have stated, "I said nothing that was not true."

You know, the one good thing about the "Kerns" of the world? Nothing quite helps the cause of justice than a "nice" bigot with irrationally based fears.

District 84 of the Oklahoma House Representatives, Sally Kerns: winner of this week's INTO THE DUST BIN OF HISTORY AWARD ...

Mr. Bush's blind arrogance!

Years ago the FBI knocked on my door; that is a story for another time but it sets a stage. Because given the environment President George Bush has created in this country, we have every reason to believe it will happen again. And it will start when ordinary citizens begin to do small, extraordinary things to take back the country they love.

It may not be as simple as providing housing for young men scared to death of war; trying to discover why students at the University of California at Berkeley were willing to get their head bashed to stop it or having the body count effect a life so personally. This time it may will be more abstract.

But the process of change must begin again.

There is nothing about Mr. Bush that is American, patriotic, loving, good or kind. With each day, each minute, each millisecond he inflicts upon this country the very worst of human nature. Listen to today's news: "Mr. Bush vetoed a bill that would have explicitly prohibited the (CIA) from using interrogation methods like waterboarding, a technique in which restrained prisoners are threatened with drowning."

Even senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has criticized the technique. "Sure," he said on CBS's 60 Minutes, "yes, without a doubt. We prosecuted Japanese war criminals after World War II and one of the charges brought against them, for which they were convicted, was that they waterboarded Americans."

It is universally rejected by military and law enforcement agencies and it is internationally scorned. Yet Mr. Bush thinks it is American, that it is patriotic, that it is a good thing to subject people to it!

Well, damn it, not in my name!

A blight like some Egyptian plague has come over us. Collectively we, as a people, have lost our way. For reasons this one ordinary citizen can not grasp, the United States of America has become the home of the intolerant and fearful where justice is no longer the rule.

There is no rational reason for Mr. Bush's blind arrogance in redefining the rule of law. Only tyrants and evil people would seek to justify coercive interrogation tactics.

At the end of Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet a little noticed character, The Prince who is the ultimate moral arbitrator of the play laments with at his countrymen:
"Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:
For never was a story of more woe
Than this..."

For never was a story of more woe ... but, now, we need to reclaim what it means to be a good and decent again.

FEAR AT 3 AM IN THE MORNING?

Dear Wife:

During our long and wonder conversations you have expressed positive feelings about our former vice-president Al Gore.

After dinner tonight I was reading his recent book, "An Assault on Reason". In the chapter entitled "The Politics of Fear" Mr. Gore reminds us of something former President Richard Nixon said in an interview after he left office in disgrace, "People react to fear, not love. They don't teach that in Sunday school, but it's true."

Gore goes on to say in relation to his father's and Edward Muskie's political loses in 1968, "There are only two kinds of politics. There is not radical and reactionary or conservative and liberal or even Democratic and Republican. There are only the politics of fear and the politics of trust. One says you are encircled by monstrous dangers. Give us power over your freedom so we may protect you. The other says the world is a baffling and hazardous place, but it can be shaped to the will of men." Mr. Gore expresses pride in both men and feels that their "politics" will eventually win out.

As I reflect on the recent Democratic primary, the political slogan that comes to mind is, "Who is answering the White House phone at 3am in the morning?" Is that the politics of fear or the politics of trust? And I wonder, will politics ever raise about that tactic? Am I just a dreamer?

Lovingly,

JUST OFF THE 10 FREEWAY IN PHOENIX - Dick's Cabaret ...

So does that headline sound like the beginning of cheap novel? I am sitting here thinking it does and mostly laughing to myself even if the eventually ending maybe sad.

Just off the 10 Freeway in Phoenix, Arizona between the weekday motels, U-haul's rentals and dusty, empty lots is East Illini Street. There is absolutely nothing on that street for an out-of-town tourist. Trucks, daytime work traffic and the average Phoenix guy on a 9-to-5 transportation job is all you'll find there ... with one exception, one soon-to-be, nationally known exception: street number 3432.

You see, it's what happens after dark, down that dead-end street, that's about to make the headlines. Like a "superman character" during the day, number 3432 is a single story, ubiquitous, light-green building with an empty, gated parking lot. But at night when the truckers leave, the gate opens and Dick's Cabaret comes alive!

Yes, none other than the world famous, Dick's Cabaret!

Well, "Darn it," you say, "I've never hear of it." Well, until twenty minutes ago, neither had I.

Good, old Dick's Cabaret was stuck in dusty, Phoenix anonymity until a former, male stripper named David Hernandez, who apparently did quite well stripping naked for the gentlemen, became one of the 20 finalists on American Idol - the highest rated show on American television.

But, oh David ... doesn't he know that a male strippers can't make the big time? I mean, can you imagine American Idol taking a winning David Hernandez "back home" to Phoenix? Back to his high school? Where thousands of screaming kids yell, "David, David, David"? Where Mayor Phil Gordon give him a key to the city? Will Police Chief Jack Harris managed the traffic when the city's "son" comes home?

I doubt it.

I doubt it, not because this whole situation isn't funny or because it will drive the Phoenix or Glendale (his home) city father's or the television people crazy or even that Mr. Hernandez maybe the season's scandal. I doubt it because Mr. Hernandez danced at a gay club and we know what that means! And God knows in our current political climate, a city or a high school or a state could not be seem as supportive of "that kind" of young person and his dreams or hopes.

I don't know if he is gay; I don't know nor do I care if he danced at Dick's; Hopefully the "Idol Machine" is not spitting out a PR piece. What I hope is that he is as talented as the rest of his companions. If he is, I may have to figure out how to vote for an American Idol.